Once safely isolated from the digital transformation of insurance, the global pandemic is forcing dental insurers to swallow a lot of change all at once.

As insurers look to form sustainable and scalable ecosystems, they’ll need to expose their products, rules, and rates to other systems of engagement. But are incumbent systems up to the challenge?

Insurtech’s promise was that it would support innovation through contemporary customer experiences and emerging business models. The truth is that insurtechs are just one part of diverse insurance ecosystems and require something more than legacy core systems to achieve their potential. They need “coretech.” And in 2020, they can get it.

The whole idea would have been ludicrous even three years ago. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, new and credible insurance brands are popping up with slick user experiences, instantaneous quotes, five-minute buy cycles, and DIY service options—all available on your phone—24 x 7 x 365. And what makes all this possible? Rapidly maturing cloud-native architecture, digitization, open APIs, and the mainstreaming of the greenfield initiative as a favored strategy are enablers.

If you could start over, knowing what you know today, what would your life look like? Where would you live? How would you spend your time and money, and with whom?

Dental insurers circle the ancillary benefits market and consider a modular platform approach

DevOps provides agility and less disruption from transformation and upgrades

Are you a benefits insurer planning to move down market? How will you win in the small case, small business market? Here are 5 questions to ask yourself and a checklist of 7 capabilities that you will very likely find you need.

Observations on legacy modernization trends for benefits insurers in Novarica’s new report

Since health care reform and the explosion of voluntary benefits, the group benefits market underwent dramatic disruption. That disruption hasn’t slowed since, and in many ways has only grown stronger. This has opened the door to a lot of opportunity that has yet to be taken advantage of.

Your distribution engine powers sales, but the fuel you need for each market segment differs. The capabilities you need to support voluntary sales by brokers in the small case market versus those focused on the large case market vary greatly.  So the question for insurers planning a down market move is: will you find the distribution you need?